RUSH: Okay, we finally got lots of polling data in, and it’s official. Trump has not been harmed by the Saturday night debate. And, in fact, you might be able to say that he helped himself in the Saturday night debate.

Greetings, my friends, and welcome. Great to have you. Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network and Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.

Now, you know, ladies and gentlemen, I posited that there might have been political strategy involved in Trump going after 9/11, WMD, George W. Bush. I don’t know how many ways I observed and commented on what Trump’s comments on that Saturday night debate were and what they sounded like, and you’ve probably heard them all from other people by now anyway — that never in my life would I believe that a Republican front-runner would advocate for Planned Parenthood.

Never in my life would I believe that a Republican front-runner would go after the veneered former Republican president, revered in South Carolina, at least, 83% approval rating, George W. Bush. Never did I believe the Republican front-runner would sound exactly like Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink, what have you, in going after a former Republican president. And this was theorized by many people as Trump losing control, out of control, becoming unhinged, emotional incontinence, any number of things were used — that was mine of course, quite clever of me — to explain what had happened…

…I wish more people were, as you know. I wish more people were able to spot liberalism and identify and attach liberalism to the failures and the messes that exist in this country, ’cause the Democrat Party is the most destructive force, and it is dominated by left-wing radicals. It’s the most destructive force in this country. So Trump was making a move for some of those voters, either because Cruz was gaining ground in the internal polling or because Trump and his people figured, “You know what? If we slam dunk it here we could effectively end this. We can dispirit everybody. We can depressing everybody, and we can just pretty much wrap this up, if we win big in South Carolina.”

So it was either that or trying to stave off and hold off Cruz, ’cause Cruz is gaining ground. Trump makes a move on the left wing, the independents, the Democrats, the far left-wing radicals with all that stuff that he said about Bush. But there’s one other possibility, and let’s acknowledge here that there might be people playing this game thinking months and months ahead of time while everybody else is focused on today, this week, and the next primary. It could well be that there are a lot of people in the Trump camp who are already planning their national campaign under the belief that they have already won this. And if so — I just want to throw something out there to you — if so, what is the number one issue that Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders is going to attack the Republican nominee on?